(peace be upon us) said: “Were it not for dissimulation (talbees), no one would have been ignorant of Allah, and were it not for explicit declaration (tasrih), no one would have known Allah. Allah has indeed hidden His religion until it was thought that He loves not to be worshipped, and He has indeed manifested His affair until it was thought that He loves not to be unknown.”

And if one should ask: What is the objective of this ruse (makr) and dissimulation (talbees)?

We say: He, the Exalted, has placed this ruse (makr) upon them and commanded us to conceal it so that they remain bound by the exoteric law (zahir al-shari'a) and shackled by its burdens (asar), and so that the people of faith may use its exoteric boundaries (hudud) as evidence for its esoteric meanings (ma'aniha al-batina). For if the people of denial were to discover what we are upon, and knew the reality of Allah's ruse against them—through the dispraising of their leaders and their followers, and the divinity (uluhiya) of the Legatee (al-Wasi), and other such esoteric secrets—they would have disbelieved in the Islamic religion, the Quran, and the one who brought it, and they would have struck down the people of those secrets.